Winnipeg: A Cross Cultural Life Change

Reflecting is helpful when attempting to live an honest life. It helps to see what went good and what has gone very wrong. Like the time I destroyed my sisters Barbie doll for sport. How was I suppose to know it wasn't for blowing up with my army men. Her head can be removed AND replaced very easily. But now I see: If you mess with your sister's Barbie doll your dad will crush your favourite Hot Wheels car.

Anyway. This reflection is on Winnipeg Challenge: A Challenge to reach out to Winnipeg with the love of Christ and to grow spiritually as well. Of course when you think missions trip you automatically think, "MEXICO" or "AFRICA." Not this time. This time we thought, "CANADA." Going, I thought we would be working with mainly muslim families in the inner city, but was I ever shocked when I realized who were working alongside: the Burmese people. Who knew? Who knew that I would be shocked to discover a new culture, shocked to find their boldness in prayer, and shocked to find that God broke my heart for them.

Most of the people in the Church we worked with are refugees. There are a large number of Karen people and some Chin as well. Both are people groups from Burma.

Here's the issue: The Burma (or Myanmar) government decided the Karen people are insignificant and are raiding their villages, raping their women, and stealing their children for soldiers. The Karen people are then displaced from their homes and farms to then be refugees in Thailand. Here is a link for a video about some of this: http://www.freeburmarangers.org/

Alongside of these beautiful people, I had the privilege of reaching out to their city: Winnipeg. We did prayer walks, met people, invited them to puppets, movie night, music, climbing wall, games and even to church. We learned about Islam and Buddhism. We reached to prostitutes and homeless. Is it not ironic that we were not reaching out to the Karen people, but working with them? They have seen the love of Christ in finding themselves alive from gunfire and raiders. They have seen, therefore they show the love and character of Christ.

I was blown away by all of this. This was a refresher because I had to leave my wife at home. Though we talked every day, it was difficult to understand why she had to stay behind. She did the paper work, paid the money, everything. Then this stunned me more: About 5 or 6 years ago my wife went on a missions trip to Thailand and you'll never guess where she spent a bunch of time. She spent it with the Karen Villages that are displaced in Thailand. God stunned me. He wanted to give me an experience and a heart for the Karen and Burmese people, similar to Nadine's experience. I am still blown away by God's wisdom.

There is too much to write, but there are two main reflections I observed: 1) The irony of working WITH the Karen and Chin people and 2) God giving me a similar experience to Nadine's.

Rest & Sabbath

Sometimes Monday is so hard. Monday could help to be a bit more subtle and lot more gentle in its approach. It just smokes you directly in the face sometimes. As a pastor, I have chosen Thursday as my day off, therefore making Monday the middle of my week in a way. But, yet it's still Monday.

Okay, enough banter. The stage is set. Monday's are set, but here's the bigger issue: Rest. What is rest and how do we do it?

I lasted through a few seminars once on rest and how sleeping and lying around actually is not necessarily rest. Leisure activities are actually sometimes more rest than sleeping. For example, for me I love hiking. When I hike I get energized and can do anything. Literally. I am like superman at this point.

After this type of rest there is different rest. Its called Sabbath rest. It is sometimes difficult to enter into this rest and I don't really understand it fully yet. So, in this case I give you the scripture to let it speak:

"It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of disobedience. Therefore God sent again a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.' For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience" (Hebrews 4:6-13)

There it is: there remains a rest and we must make every effort to enter it. That rest seems to be when we enter eternity. My question is this: Since we become saved now, can we also begin to enter His rest now? I am not sure about you but I am tired and I get tired of running a race.

For people like me, this rest is my hope to press on. This is my hope for life. Like hiking energizes, I pray so will the hope of rest. God grant us peace in the mundane and encouragement in this race.

It's funny. I took a break from this blog post and just came back. I had a sweet chat with a spiritual mentor and bam, rest. Sometimes it takes someone, filled with the Spirit, to show you the hope that you already have. Thanks God, today you gave me sabbath rest in some strange way.